Olympia minimum wage proposal fails. Campaign says well was poisoned from the start
Monday night’s ballot tally in Thurston County showed Olympia’s Prop. 1 measure, which would have raised the minimum wage to $20 per hour and provided some new worker protections, is nearly certain to fail. The “Yes for Olympia Workers” campaign spokesperson said the proposal was doomed from the start.
According to the Thurston County Auditor’s website, the measure is failing 52.5% to 47.5%, or 9,182 votes to 8,295 votes. An estimated 3,500 ballots countywide are still to be counted.
Campaign spokesperson Rob Richards said he thinks mathematically, the outcome is set. He said it would probably take 90% of the remaining votes supporting the measure to swing it in the other direction.
Richards said the campaign is grateful for the support it received from businesses and nonprofits in the region, including the Thurston Climate Action Team and the Olympia Food Co-Op, as well as Rainy Day Records.
“This process began in the public sphere way before we filed any campaign paperwork in August, and it kind of seemed like the well was poisoned from the jump,” he said. “There was a lot of misinformation floating around already.”
He said the campaign wasn’t able to make a proper counterargument to win over enough people.
Richards said despite the struggles, Prop. 1 is being defeated by a pretty narrow margin. He said that shows that people do want to do something to help those struggling.
“Still, 44% of households in Olympia are rent burdened or otherwise financially insecure, and their food stamps just got taken away,” he said. “I don’t think we need a lot of study or debate on this issue to know that low-income workers in Olympia need help now.”
Richards said the City Council has an opportunity now to reconsider adopting an increased minimum wage with a provision that requires large employers to offer more hours and other protections to workers.
“Throughout this campaign, the council members who sided with the ‘No’ campaign said that they support our workers,” he said. Richards urges them to “take swift action to immediately provide our workers an economic life raft in the form of a couple more bucks an hour. It’s just the right thing to do right now.”
Mayor Dontae Payne, who endorsed the “Olympia Together” campaign against the proposition, said he agrees; the numbers show the City Council needs to work with the community to craft a policy that works for everybody.
Payne said the council will be giving direction to Assistant City Manager Stacey Ray to continue the work the Finance Committee had directed her to do prior to Prop. 1 being places on the ballot.
“Which is the work of continuing to assess the current economic conditions of the city and also to really figure out how we can meet the needs of our community in ways that have been identified specifically by bringing people from throughout our community together to craft a policy response that is of Olympia, from within Olympia, and for Olympia,” Payne said.
He said now that the election is over, he hopes Olympia can come together to work on a new proposal.
“We have our differences, but let’s come together as a community and move forward so that we can come up with a shared vision that will work for all of us,” he said.
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